(which sacrifices predictive power and therefore falsifiability, in order to gain accuracy of fit. So it is not ideal. But it does render obvious some empirical points: e.g., take the example of risking back injury to move a friend's sofa. Wolf says she does not act out of self-interest. Well, okay. But if we raise the material cost of risked back injury - by imagining a steadily heavier sofa, say - it seems implausible that a reasonable individual would not eventually refuse to help with the sofa; it is reasonable to say that material interests enter somewhere into the calculus of conscious action, and that non-material and material interests are somewhere compared, even if inconsistently or without given conscious meaning. If a woman is glad of having adopted a child, the fundamental mover here is the gladness, nor the conscious meanings cited for it)
wolf was responding to a common dichotomy in human psychology: humans are motivated by self-interest or objective elements (such as reason, duty, morality) or both. she proposes that this understanding of human psychology is weak for it does not take into account love or meaning
( ... )
Well, one can deny both sides of the dichotomy, and say that conscious motivations are frequently post-hoc rationalizations - particularly in matters relating to social relationships and status. The conscious actor is simply not the prime mover. Where this is the case, speculation about possible motivations is likely to be unproductive.
Comments 5
(which sacrifices predictive power and therefore falsifiability, in order to gain accuracy of fit. So it is not ideal. But it does render obvious some empirical points: e.g., take the example of risking back injury to move a friend's sofa. Wolf says she does not act out of self-interest. Well, okay. But if we raise the material cost of risked back injury - by imagining a steadily heavier sofa, say - it seems implausible that a reasonable individual would not eventually refuse to help with the sofa; it is reasonable to say that material interests enter somewhere into the calculus of conscious action, and that non-material and material interests are somewhere compared, even if inconsistently or without given conscious meaning. If a woman is glad of having adopted a child, the fundamental mover here is the gladness, nor the conscious meanings cited for it)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M_6qOz-yw
Reply
Leave a comment